


Everything is Never Quite Enough

by fromward (from)



Series: a little singing between two great rests [2]
Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M, M/M, Oral Sex, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/pseuds/fromward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex falls down and gets back up again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything is Never Quite Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: onelittlesleep
> 
> Written in 2005.

1998

 

Founder’s Day arrives several weeks into Spring Term, at the end of a listless January. There are no personal guests attached to the Luthor name, so Lex fills his schedule with the morning fencing tournament, a long Greek reading in the library after lunch and the water-polo match against the old boys team.

In the showers afterwards, Lex is reminded of Freddie's father, the night in the Mayfair house, his worn hands on Lex's heavy back. Since they came back from winter holidays, he hasn’t had the chance to return the clothes he borrowed. Throwing them in the mail seems careless and throwing them away rude. He decides he'll swing by Freddie’s after dinner to go over tomorrow’s fencing event and see if the opportunity arises to throw it into the neglected piles of clothes he knows Freddie will at some point bring home.

On his way to Wimpole after lingering in the dining hall, Lex is surprised to find unfamiliar blooms of Lenten roses near the Music School. He’s seen them pink and white and blood red, but never purple. Having always loved the Hellebores for rising in the harshness of winter, he knows now what will take the place of old school button-downs come graduation. He takes one of the richest flowers and lays it down on an empty page of his Chemistry notebook. Turnbull and Asser shirts in all of the petals’ hues, he thinks and smiles.

In his friend’s first-floor rooms, Lex drops his schoolbag on the ground before taking the green velvet armchair and loosening his tie. Freddie is finishing up an e-mail to his mother so Lex spends the time observing the field: full laundry basket by the bathroom, half-opened closet doors, a heating rack similar to the ones in his own quarters.

Freddie is fencing captain of his house and so is Lex, but the Brit isn’t nearly as competitive as Lex is. After Freddie sits down on his bed, they easily slip into the camaraderie of two boys who have grown up on the same team, shared dinners and bus seats and locker rooms and stories about girls.

Lex stores these minutes for the years he knows will come.

The first bell for evening roll call rings before they’ve done more than compare and crosscheck lists. Lex stalls until the second before telling his friend that he needs to use the bathroom and he’ll let himself out.

When the blond is gone, Lex flushes the toilet he didn’t use and goes back into the bedroom, slipping all the articles of clothing into the two wall closets except for the button-down shirt. It’s somewhat creased, as he expected, so he throws it into Freddie’s pile of laundry before going back to his own house.

He has the best sleep he’s had in a long fucking time.

 

*

 

Lex is suiting up after a light breakfast, in a very good mood as he chats with the fifth formers under his leadership. They seem a little less scared of him, which is fine because it’s Founder’s Day and soon he’ll be an old boy, too.

Freddie shows up with a big smile on his face, chewing on an apple. Lex can’t tell what he’s so happy about, but he smiles back. His friend is talkative this morning and Lex helps him into his uniform to speed the process along.

“…and Russell’s sister is coming. You know what that means,” Freddie laughs, chucking the apple core into the nearest trash bin before coming back closer so he’s within Lex’s reach again. “The oddest thing, though, mate, I found one of my father’s shirts in the laundry pile. I don’t understand how it got there. I don’t remember wearing it. Would’ve been impossible anyway. We don’t share in the family,” he says, winking. “He’d probably kill me if he found out, thinking I’d stolen it. Christ, Luthor, my arm’s here, not—Thanks.”

Lex feels a cold sweat coming. The old fool gave Lex his own shirt instead of his son’s and Lex was just as stupid. He didn’t think to check the monogram against Freddie’s full name.

“Well, he’ll be here in an hour or so,” Freddie says. “I hid the shirt, of course, in case he decides to go up to my room and sniff around the place.”

An angry scowl forms on Lex’s face so fast there’s nothing else to do but for him to leave the locker room. He goes through the bouts with so much intensity and – he’ll admit – viciousness that by mid-morning, everyone is staying clear of him the best they can in the crowded sports hall.

 

*

 

Lex spends lunch in the house instead of the decorated dining hall, filling up on what’s left from the welcome brunch he wasn’t here for. He’ll probably miss the Greek reading, too. He’s heard _Crito_ in its original language before and right now, he doesn’t give a flying fuck about any condemned man other than himself.

Bill Conti, whose task is to supervise their active recycling effort, walks in with his thirteen and fourteen year-old slave hands. Apparently the trucks don’t care if today’s Founder’s Day or not. Lex thinks there’s nothing worse than having to work with waste and he gets out of their way.

His housemate is resourceful and gets along well with most of the other boys in the house, so Lex doesn’t understand why he got stuck with this public service chore. It probably gives him a good view of the trash bins at least twice a week.

Lex says goodbye and goes upstairs to sit in his study.

The move does no good. Lex still can’t hear himself think.

He showers, puts on his full uniform and leaves.

It’s difficult trying to avoid the alumni because there are swarms of them all over campus, but Lex manages to only bump into ones he doesn’t know.

Amusingly enough, he finds himself outside the library. He goes inside, but not all the way into where the collections are held. Instead, he decides to hide in the fourth form group study room just outside the keycard gates. He knows they’re not allowed to use it outside prep hours and this afternoon, it's completely empty.

There's something to be said for knowing every rulebook front to back and back to front.

Lex is lounging in one of the armchairs, absentmindedly watching the cricket far in the distance, when the door opens.

It’s a group of alumni and Lex smiles at them, bitter about losing his sanctuary. Recognizing one of the men, he freezes and feels pain shooting through his tongue, cut by his own teeth.

Over an hour later, he’s managed to escape to the adjoining media room, but Freddie’s father finds a way to join him in a matter of moments, telling him the other men have gone off to watch the rugby.

Lex has nothing to say to him except how Lex can’t believe he put Lex in one of his own shirts.

The old man’s face shows a mixture of hopeless surprise and discomfort. There’s sickening joy, too, before he looks away. Something in Lex cracked, harsh and wet.

Lex eyes him up and down with so much vitriol that he almost forgets to ask the fool if any of the other items are also his. He curses when all that he can hear is telltale silence.

“Calm down, dear boy. We can take care of this.”

“What is it?” Lex moves toward the man. “What else is yours?”

“The handkerchief.”

“The—What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Lex. Please.” Freddie’s father puts a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s be civil,” he says.

He flinches. He shouldn’t let the man touch him. No one is safe here. “It didn’t mean anything. None of it meant anything. Do you understand me?”

“Lex—”

“You don’t get to own me.” Lex can’t lower his voice. He doesn’t know how to. Someone inside him says he’s in a vast and windowless empty shell of a room and it’s normal to be this loud, but he knows that’s not true. “You don’t get to put your clothes on me like I’m a dog who needs to be tagged.”

“That’s not what…That was not my intention. Call me a sentimental fool, but—”

”Yes, you’re a fool who’s going to get us in big fucking trouble,” Lex says, trying to calm down, to clear the space in his head. He wants to throw something, anything. Maybe this man watching him, and maybe across the room. “Your son isn’t an idiot, sir. He _will_ figure it out.”

“No, no,” Freddie’s father says, moving closer to rub his back. “He won’t, Lex. Don’t you worry.”

“Don’t touch me,” he shouts, pushing away.

When Lex lowers his hand, he sees the man falling, losing his balance even as he tries to catch himself on the edge of a carrel.

Lex can only stare until he hears: “Luthor…”

He looks up and it’s Conti at the door, backing out, wide-eyed and…hungry.

“Bill,” Lex calls. “Wait!”

The door swings close and Lex can’t control himself. He slams his arm against one of the cabinets and bites into it.

Freddie’s father is getting up, trying to tell him things, and Lex feels the words piercing through his jacket, sweater and shirt, driving horror into his skin.

The entrance hall grows busy as, he suspects, the reading in the library finishes. The door opens and what was muffled now rings clear in his ears.

Lex stares at the mark on his sleeve.

“Conti, you’re barking.”

“Freddie, mate, they’re _in_ there.”

“Is everything all right in here?” Lex can hear Freddie enter the room, his gait well-pronounced on the old parquet floor.

“Hello, Papa.” Freddie clears his throat. “Lex.”

Lex takes a moment before looking at Freddie in the eye. It’s odd, the feeling of remorse. He can’t quite decide if he’s sad for each of them or if he’s dissatisfied with where he’s ended up in the middle of all of it.

 

*

 

“Filthy little faggot,” he hears and doesn’t turn around.

He knows whose voice that was. It’s low enough for no one else to hear, but a little too loud for his ears and schoolboy sensibilities.

What’s worse, even though Lex has picked up his pace, it keeps getting louder. “Thought you could get away with it, did you? Thought I was an idiot?”

“No,” he looks at Freddie and then back at the corner ahead. Lex has been waiting for him for two days. It’s still unpleasant, but he’s not surprised.

“Do you know what they could do to my father and our family if they get wind of this?” He’s being shoved against the eastern side of the bookstore. Someone in his head tells him that it’s already dark and no one can see them. “Do you?”

He doesn’t say anything and Freddie is breathing hard on him. It’s the first time he notices the group of boys following them, waiting on his friend from a subtle distance, if Lex can still call Freddie that.

He supposes not.

“I heard you’re very good with your pretty little mouth, filthy little faggot. Can I feel what it’s like against my fist?”

Lex can’t see Freddie’s blue eyes. They’re standing on the wrong side of the road for that.

He can now, however, count the number of boys in his surroundings.

When the punch he is expecting doesn’t come, he pushes past his co-captain. The brick wall is cold, the situation’s starting to annoy him and at this rate, he won’t make it to the school post office in time.

“My father, Lex. My father. How would you feel if I...” Freddie shut his mouth, face white.

“If you what, Freddie? If you what? Sucked my father's cock in his house in town? Let my father fuck you in the room next to mine while I was busy with some girl in the village? Made him beg whenever he came around for seconds and thirds and—”

He doesn’t blame Freddie for losing it.

He understands, he thinks, how things must seem from the outside.

Hell, they don’t even look simple from the inside.

It’s just that it hurts when his knee connects with the wall as if a photographer’s playing with it, trying out angle after angle to get the best results.

 

*

 

Lex returns from the medical centre in the middle of the day, when most boys have just started lunch. He suspects that his release has been scheduled to fit the school’s needs, but he’s not complaining. He is nervous enough.

Matron adds her little signature to the permission slips he’s brought back with him and keeps copies for herself. She tells him that she’ll take something up to his rooms in a little while and his neck tightens up even more. She hasn’t gone out of her way to be kind to him ever since the incident above her flat halfway through his fourth year.

Taking a deep breath, he opens his door. All his belongings are not where they are supposed to be. It's as if the house rocked sideways and a blind person tried to right everything for his return.

Lex locks himself in and heads straight for the closet by his desk. When he checks the hiding place he found a year ago, he’s relieved to find that the Napoleon coin watch is sitting in its case – still untouched by anyone but his mother and himself.

He has a mind to lodge a complaint, but the Headmaster told him everything has been forgiven and forgotten for the sake of everyone involved. He didn’t have to be fully conscious in his bed yesterday to know that it meant he must move on or face any consequences alone.

Over the next week, classes are hell. No one wants to talk to him, he can’t catch up on missed lessons because of the lack of notes and his seat is always the worst one in the class. On the upside, it also means that he doesn’t get called on by any of the masters and none of the monitors bother to tell him off for not having his school shirt tucked in like a good boy.

One of the first XI bumps into him in the piano corridor on Monday night and he almost breaks into a basic defensive position his dad’s old chauffeur taught him before he notices that the boy is grinning.

Lex doesn’t say anything when the boy asks him if he wants to come by the old squash courts an hour before roll call tomorrow evening. He’s been to that party before, back when he was too young to remember that there would always be another day for sucking cock. The cricketer must not be as old as Lex thought.

Surprise has turned into irritation by the time he finds himself a practice room. He bangs on the keys so much that the second person who speaks to him after his return is the Malaysian wunderkind from the room over and across. Lex bears the somewhat polite if lengthy abuse of the word ‘tosser’ and decides that the plans he made while recuperating need to be put into place. He wasn’t so paranoid after all.

He apologizes and tells the Asian kid to hold the door. When he gets back to his house, he realizes that he ran all the way there. His knee has healed.

It is a good sign, he thinks. He doesn’t even bother to avoid walking past Bill’s room or worry about the fencing team’s upcoming matches when he sees a note that tells him Freddie and two other saber fencers have quit.

Looking at the school calendar, Lex decides that an upcoming social event he’s completely forgotten otherwise is the perfect occasion to stage his restoration. What he needs first of all is the right girl, the kind made for the stage and for the kill.

 

*

 

The first time Lex met Victoria, he’d just sat through Ibsen’s _Enemy of the People_ while doing a mental wank to Ian McKellen, who was brilliant in the show. Lex didn’t know his right foot from his left in those first few minutes outside the theatre. He was following his housemates down the staircase when a noise made everyone jump away from the middle. He had no time to stop and stumbled into Garrett. Seconds later, the Scotsman received a blow to the head by a program booklet and a slim paperback.

“I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry,” he heard a girl say from above. “How careless of me.”

Lex looked up and the first thing he noticed was a cleavage of proportions he’d never seen before in real life. He supposed it was the reason for the other boys’ reaction, or perhaps non-reaction as no one picked the books up from the stairs or made any attempt at verbally communicating back. The girl looked young. About their age, he reckoned. When she reached them, he could see how long her legs were and how her face was almost beautiful.

Garrett, Said and Chesterton addressed their assailant, drowning one another out for one awkward moment before they fell silent again. It was Bill Conti who took the initiative and grabbed the books from someone’s hopeful hand, though with no intention of returning them just yet.

Lex only smiled at the chatter and fell back, once more taking the stairs to meet the rest of their House. He heard soft footfalls behind him as other boys followed, muttering to one another about their friends’ chances. He knew Victoria’s kind even then, even before he knew her name. There was no point in having the type of conversations you made aloud, he wanted to tell them. Nothing would be of interest until she saw what you could do for her.

When he fell into his bed that night, he dreamed of burrowing deep into a girl with his tongue, his arms bracing her sides, her feet planted on his sides. She tasted as good as the palest of ales – not unlike all the girls and women he’d ever had – but smelled of color, a sticky rich pigment between his fingertips. It made him dizzy, it made him needful and hard, but he liked fucking her like this and so he did not stop. His cheeks were moist. His face slid and he’s reaching in, past the noises she was making and the strain on the back of his mouth, over and over again.

The moment Lex felt he couldn’t wait any longer, he held the girl down with one arm to free his left hand. He ran a knuckle along the soft folds of flesh, wet now from overspill, and slipped his finger in as he licked out to the top of her slit and over her clit, stroking the bud with the flat of his wet tongue while he inserted another finger and moved them both inside her.

She bucked and he eased the pressure, lingered until her hand was grappling at his before increasing it again. Their fingers twined in her and he heard himself moan, his head against her hip. She ran her hand along the back of his neck, rising a little.

He put his elbow down on the grass and looked up. A plane flew low overhead, as if it were falling, breaking apart.

The girl pushed him away and started to run and Lex was spinning wild into the dark air or into rough water, he could not tell, didn’t know if he would survive.

Ten strenuous and uneasy days later, Lex came back early from fencing practice to find a short message in his voice mailbox. She told him her name and how she hated her aim. She’d meant to hit him that night at the National Theatre, but her scheme had failed and she’d been stuck with three pretty but exceedingly dull boys. If Lex would ask one of them for her number, she would make sure that on his next exeat, he’d have a place to stay in London and her company all weekend long.

He returned her call later that night and sent Harvey Nichols gift vouchers to the LuthorCorp London office, thanking them for their help in preparing a quick brief on Victoria Hardwick.

Up until the start of February, Lex saw Victoria a total number of six times.

Their shortest meeting was a frenetic hour in Cardiff. He was on an overnight school trip and she managed to sneak out of her grandparents’ country property, which was miles away. She wore a black jumpsuit – Gaultier, she said – and he couldn’t remember being so aroused in his whole life.

Their longest time together lasted for three days. She caught her father’s latest fiancée kissing him – although the bitch said that Lex had made the moves on her – and promptly kicked him out of their townhouse along with the Christmas presents he’d painstakingly selected.

After New Year’s, they called a truce and met for a quiet lunch. Lex gave her the bracelet, silk gown and first-edition of Tallulah Bankhead’s autobiography in a white plastic supermarket bag. Victoria rolled her large, doe eyes and made out with him until the bistro’s manager was forced to call them a taxicab for the sake of the other patrons.

She dropped him off at his hotel and he went upstairs to pack for school. He thought that was that.

 

*

 

Victoria pretends she’s annoyed that he’s asking her to be his date less than a week before the Valentine’s Day dance, but he knows her. She can’t wait.

The evening arrives and he finds her dressed in a flowing metallic silver dress with embroidered golden Byzantine crosses, her hair up in a Greco-Roman sort of style. When he steps up to hold her, he’s surprised to find that the dress is made of leather and the icons, of glass. She whispers dirty words to him as if she was updating him on closing market prices and he smiles because all the other boys at the dance won’t ever understand. He tells her that she looks stunning. She tells him that it’s Versace.

Inside the hall, Garrett, Said and Chesterton cannot hide their shock.

Freddie and Bill stare at him. Freddie looks like he’s about to walk off, but Bill puts a hand around Freddie’s arm and his ex-teammate stills.

He takes Victoria to the center of the floor. They laugh as he twirls her around and soon, he’s lost in the sheer relief flowing from all the parts of him that are touching her.

Three songs go by before Lex notices that Bill still has his hand on Freddie. He leans into Victoria and buries his smirk in her perfumed shoulder, closing his eyes.

Later on, she insists on him telling her what was so amusing and he kisses her under what feels like the gaze of everyone around them.

She mingles with other people when they take a break from dancing and Lex doesn’t mind. He’s happy to see that they are both getting what they want.

The dance is over at eleven and the boys trickle out, escorting the girls to their arranged transport.

Lex tells the Hardwicks’ chauffeur to wait for a moment. He gets into the car with Victoria and proceeds to fuck her up her dress and against the backseat. She is making all the appropriate noises in an inappropriate volume and for the duration, Lex cares about nothing else.

An airplane is plummeting from the sky, Victoria has somewhere else to go, and Lex knows the longest way back to his boarding house in the dark, crisp night, past his schoolmates and their scathing, envious eyes.

Tomorrow, the whole school will be busy with whatever news is latest, Lex will receive detention for improper behavior at a school function, Lionel will receive word regarding the matter and ask what Lex has on the Hardwicks.


End file.
